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Minneapolis Bitcoin ATM - Coinhub
Coinhub Bitcoin ATM in Minneapolis, Minnesota
You can instantly buy bitcoin with cash at our Coinhub Bitcoin ATM Near me in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Coinhub offers $25,000 daily limits and lowest rates for Bitcoin. Bitcoin ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) are kiosks that allow users to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using cash. Coinhub's Bitcoin cash kiosks are a fast and convenient way to buy Bitcoin and have it delivered directly to your wallet in minutes. Coinhub Bitcoin machines can be used quickly and easily. If you're using a Coinhub Bitcoin Machine near me, you are able to purchase Bitcoin instantly and receive it within minutes. Purchases can be done in under 2 minutes and there is no prior account needed. To purchase Bitcoin, simply walk up to any Coinhub Bitcoin ATM and verify your details. Many Coinhub Bitcoin ATMs also allow you to both buy AND sell crypto for cash. The process of buying Bitcoin using one of our Bitcoin ATMs is as follows: First locate the closest Bitcoin ATM near you in your city by visiting our Coinhub Bitcoin ATM Locator. Walk up to the machine and enter your phone number. You will then verify your phone with a code and scan your bitcoin wallet. Enter bills one bill at a time for the amount you would like to purchase and confirm the bitcoin atm prior to purchase. Bitcoin is then instantly sent to your wallet. The daily buying limit is $25,000. There are Bitcoin Machines located in major cities across the country.
Minneapolis ( (listen)) is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Hennepin County. Abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls, Minneapolis has its origins in timber and as the flour milling capital of the world. It lies along both banks of the Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota. The city, inhabited by the Dakota Sioux prior to settlement, got its start due to the construction of Fort Snelling in 1819 eventually spurring growth along Saint Anthony Falls. With 429,954 inhabitants as of 2020, Minneapolis is the most populous city in the state and the 46th most populous city in the nation.
Armatage, Beltrami, Bottineau, Bryant, Bryn Mawr, Camden, Central, Cleveland, Corcoran, Downtown East, East Harriet, East Isles, Field, Folwell, Fulton

subset: commoncrawl


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GateHouse Media
January 3, 2020
If the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, ever decides to
deliver the Articles of Impeachment to the U.S. Senate for trial, America is
going to get a rare opportunity to see a Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court at work.
U.S. Supreme Court proceedings are not televised. In 1999,
America watched as Chief Justice William Rehnquist presided over the
impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Television was still about 70
years off into the future when Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presided over the
impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
Maybe, in the not-too-distant future Chief Justice John
Roberts Jr. may be under the spotlight, figuratively and literally, presiding
over the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
On Jan. 27, 2020 Chief Justice Roberts will be 65-years-old.
He was nominated by President George W. Bush, and confirmed by the Senate
78-22, becoming only the 17th chief justice in U.S. history.
Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York and attended Harvard
University and Harvard Law School. After law school he clerked for Justice
Rehnquist - the man he would ultimately replace on the court.
Although Roberts is considered a conservative he has served
as a key swing vote on divided rulings. For instance, he voted with the liberal
side of the court in upholding key provisions of Obamacare, but sided with the
conservatives in opposing same-sex marriage.
Roberts faces his responsibilities in the impeachment with
some trepidation. First, the chief justice and the president have had public
disagreements about the role of the courts. According to the New York Times, in
2018, Trump called a judge who had ruled against his administration's asylum
policy "an Obama judge." In response, the chief justice said the president had
misunderstood the role of the federal courts in the constitutional system.
"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or
Clinton judges," Roberts said in a statement. "What we have is an extraordinary
group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those
appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be
thankful for."
Trump replied on Twitter, "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts,
but you do indeed have Obama judges ... and they have a much different point of
view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country."
Last week, Roberts gave his annual end of the year report.
While hailing the rule of law he ominously wrote, "(W)e should also remember
that justice is not inevitable."
The limits of justice come into clear focus with the recent
statements of two GOP senate leaders. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
and Sen. Lindsey Graham have said they will not be impartial jurors during the
impeachment trial. McConnell is coordinating with the White House about a trial
strategy and Graham has also given input. "I'm not an impartial juror,"
McConnell told reporters, according to CNN.
Roberts may have to deal with those statements in the
context of Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that every
senator must take the following oath before trying an impeachment case:
"I solemnly swear or affirm that in all things appertaining
to the trial of the impeachment of the president now pending, I will do
impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws; so help me God."
Justice Roberts may have to decide if there is a difference
between being "an impartial juror," and doing "impartial justice according to
the Constitution."
Roberts may also be called upon to decide whether the Senate
can conduct a trial without the Articles of Impeachment from the House? And,
once trial begins, can the Democrats subpoena witnesses to appear before the
The American people may get a chance to see, and hear, a lot
from the chief justice in the coming weeks.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.
To visit the column CLICK HERE


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The government and BP claim that the combination of Corexit and crude oil is less toxic than crude oil by itself.
Is that true?
Well, scientists have found that when Corexit is applied to the actual crude oil from BP's well, it releases 35 times more toxic chemicals into the water column than would be released with crude alone.
And the tests conducted by the EPA which purport to show that dispersant plus crude is less toxic than oil alone used a combination of Corexit with Louisiana light crude oil. However, the oil coming out of BP's leaking well contains an unusually high concentration of methane. As CBS notes:
The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.
It is doubtful that the EPA used such unusually methane-rich oil in their testing.
More importantly, EPA toxicity tests on the dispersant-oil mixture were conducted at sea level pressures (in other words, the pressure at the surface of the ocean). But enormous quantities of Corexit have been applied 5,000 feet under the ocean at the leaking wellhead.
As the New York Times noted in May:
There has been significant research in response to spills over the past few decades, especially the Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 and the Prestige spill in 2002 off the coast of Spain.
But all of the scientific precedent is from spills from tankers or near shore.
"We are working with reliable knowledge from that science," Plumb said, "but it is limited and not across the scale or scope of the ecosystem we are in now."
Scientists and responders are prepared to deal with oiled birds and shoreline effects, because those are the usual problems. An ongoing oil spill a mile under water is unchartered ground.
"We've never dealt with this kind of deep water, we've never dealt with this amount of dispersants, we've never dealt with the Gulf," [Roger Helm, chief of the contaminants division of the Fish and Wildlife Service] said. "We're in a very early phase of the science here; there is not a lot of experimental work or practical work upon which to base the work we're doing."
Marine biologist and toxicologist Dr. Chris Pincetich – who has an extensive background in testing the effects of chemicals on fish – told me yesterday that scientists have no idea what compounds will be formed when Corexit dispersant and oil interact under the high pressures present at BP's deepwater spill site (Dr. Pincetich directed environmental toxicity testing as a consultant and lab supervisor for many years, and now works to protect endangered sea turtles at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, http://www.seaturtles.org).
And as Scientific American notes, breakdown products from the dispersant might be toxic as well:
For example, more testing will be needed to determine if the breakdown of Corexit 9500 – either into other chemicals or when metabolized by animals – produces toxic products of its own. "In toxicology, it's quite often not the original compound that's the toxic entity," [toxicologist Cary Mitchelmore of the University of Maryland, who co-authored a National Research Council report on dispersants in 2005] notes.
Indeed, even Sergio Alex Villalobos, toxicologist for Nalco – maker of the Corexit dispersant – says:
Once it's mixed with oil, that's where you get the most impact, that's where you see most of the toxicity.
Government Testing is "Embarrassing"
Dr. Pincetich says that he's "embarrassed" that the government is using inadequate tests regarding the toxicity of Corexit. For example, when I asked whether he thought the EPA's screening level for Corexit in the Gulf of 750 parts per million is based on sound science, Dr. Pincetich said no. He pointed me to a 1996 study which found that exposures of less than 20 ppm can adversely affect abalone.
Dr. Pincetich also noted that the tests being used in the Gulf are not the standard type of tests used to measure toxicity of long-term chronic exposure, but are typically only used for initial screening of effluent from coastal dischargers. There is no scientific evidence to support using only such a short-term, acute exposure test. The EPA training manual contains dozens of better testing protocols, and toxicity tests are usually run on 7 different species when there is a screening of unknown toxic chemicals involved (and even basic national pollution discharge standards require testing for 3 species), but – in the Gulf – the EPA has only been testing using 2 species.
Dr. Pincetich has also noted that EPA toxicity testing for Corexit is woefully inadequate, since EPA testing was only for mortality and only used a 48- and 96-hour time frame. His doctoral research found that fish that were alive at 96 hours after exposure to pesticide were dead at two weeks, so the chemicals were considered non-lethal for the purposes of the test:
Dr. Pincetich explained that many standardized EPA bioassay toxicity testing protocols exist to measure growth and reproduction in marine early life stage organisms, but EPA is just using the cheapest possible tests. He says that standard tests should be run, and BP should pick up the tab.
Corexit May Delay Recovery of the Gulf for Years … Or Even Decades
Dr. Pincetich told me that he believes that use of dispersant may – in certain circumstances – delay recovery of the ecosystem for years.
Indeed, PhD toxicologist Ricki Ott noted in a New York Times Op Ed that dispersants like Corexit can persist in the ocean for decades:
[Dispersants] can linger in the water for decades, especially when used in deep water, where low temperatures can inhibit biodegradation.
Some experts have also said that the use of Corexit has prolonged by decades the presence of toxic crude oil, because the dispersant sinks the oil beneath the ocean surface, where it cannot be quickly broken down by sun, waves and microbes.
And the head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Ecology Department – Terry Hazen – argues that the use of dispersants can delay recovery of ocean ecosystems by decades:
Hazen has more than 30 years experience studying the effects of oil spills. He says the oil will be damaging enough; toxic dispersants will just make it worse. He points to the 1978 Amoco Cadiz Spill off the coast of Normandy as an example. He says areas where dispersants were used still have not fully recovered, while areas where there was no human intervention are now fine.
As Hazen has noted:
"The untreated coastal areas were fully recovered within five years of the Amoco Cadiz spill," says Hazen. "As for the treated areas, ecological studies show that 30 years later, those areas still have not recovered."
Admittedly, chemicals other than Corexit were used in the Amoco Cadiz spill. But the precautionary tale still holds: chemicals should not be applied to oil spills unless scientists are positive that they will provide a net long-term benefit.
Disturbingly, Corexit is apparently still being sprayed in the Gulf. See this, this and this.
9 comments
Doc Holiday Re: "doubtful that the EPA used such unusually methane-rich oil in their testing"
==> Get real, the EPA has no tests, procedures or processes that can be taken into account for the chemical dynamics that are floating around in the Gulf … the charade that they have an understanding of what's going on (out there) is pure bullshit and obviously PR for BP.
Likewise, FDA, CDC, NASA, NOAA and the Coast Guard are all full of shit as well and that's a F'ing shame that our own country relies on collusion to spin bullshit through hype — pretending that there is some model in place that explains what Corexit is doing to the tainted seafood that will be sold to retarded people that buy this crap!
skippy Hi'O Doc Holiday,
George Carlin – Saving the Planet see:
Skippy…the BIG E says OOOOOOOMMM!
PS. how do I short humanity and collect[?]…umm.
Debra I'm going to say a really dumb assed thing, here, and I hope you will forgive me…
Crude oil COMES FROM nature. It is part of the plan. (Uh, don't worry, I have no pretenses of knowing what the plan is, but I know that what is out there that we have not MADE is part of the plan…)
Corexit is NOT PART of the plan…
Should we be wondering at this point ?
Anybody who has ever MADE anything knows that most of the time, when you fuck something up, trying to correct your mistake tends to make things worse.
Very, very often. Most of the time, even.
Enough said.
This article makes me very sad…-
skippy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2b8ENc_Ak
Skippy…have a nice ride K.
John Emerson The federal response to the BP spill was astonishingly bad. This seemed like an area where Obama could have scored points, at no cost to himself, by doing the right thing. He chose not to.
Steve It took the French over two hundred years of abuse before they started lopping off heads.
I wonder what the tolerance level is of the American people what with food stamps, easy access to prescription and illicit drugs and really big TV's.
Maybe this time it's different… -
sukibarney I'm no scientist but it stands to reason that if something ultimately needs to be cleaned up and removed up why would you want to disperse it making it more difficult to contain? Especially if it's dispersed with something more toxic than the spill.
EPA and the MMS= Dumb and Dumber. EPA,MMS and Obama= the 3 stooges -
PJM The current USA Government has the same pattern behaviour of URSS/Communists in the past. How can be possible this today? How much decay is needed to americans wake up and open their eyes?
Its really sad.
This episode will have more impact than were thinking today. I believe the impact of this american tragedy and the cover up and misbehaviour from american government will afect more the world than we think. This toxics will afect a large parte od the sea food production in the world. And with the current low level of food reserves, the changing in the weather patterns causing less food producion around the world, the QE by the dollar spreading inflation across the globe and, of course, the risk of proteccionism in the food sector, we will withness huges famines in some parts of the world in the next years.
This is sad. The colapse of American Empire will be dramatic to all of us. Not only americans.
I hope to be wrong but I believe Im right. And I dont speculate in food commodities. Is against my basic principles. But doing a mere analysis to the food markets Im seeing the right conditions to see one of great bull market ever seeing in the last three hundred years in commodities. Just doing a simple analisys to the market, to the lowest levels of food reserves in decades, eigtheen years of food producion increasing that was a winning stake in a row that inst statistically sustainble and, to be more dangerous, a lot of money created by central banks and government spending through the economic system.
This american tragedy in the Gulf will afect us around the globe. It was the most government incompetency in decades in USA. This tragedy and the Katrina tragedy show us how the big and powerfull american government has the same pattern behaviour of URSS communists governemts in the past. The government in USA is so big, with a lot of power and money, resources, human resoruces and so on, but is so incompetent, with nasty leaders and one puppet as President, that I cant believe how could be this possible in… USA.
Wake up americans. Wake up before the tipping point. What is happening in the USA is a high level of corruption, incompetence and sofisticade fascim. Wake up before is too late.


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The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) holds over 22,000 linear feet of original materials documenting key collecting areas, which include the history of NC State University; agricultural innovations; plant and crop sciences; forestry and environmental sciences; computer simulation; the history of computing; architecture and design; landscape architecture; animal rights and welfare; veterinary medicine; zoological health; entomology; textiles; engineering; and related subject areas.
The staff of the SCRC has created collection guides for most of these collections. Collection guides identify, describe, and list the contents of collections of materials that are not individually cataloged. Most guides also contain information about the person or organization that created the collection. Typically, these guides do not list individual items in the collection being described, but rather describe groupings of materials such as the contents of a folder or a box as well as the organizational context in which these materials are stored.


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Less Sperm, More Egg: Martha Beck's Four Technologies
The four technologies of magic
Posted August 13, 2013
In Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this 5 part blog series about embracing a more feminine way of manifesting your dreams, I discussed how striving to make something happen is neither the most joyful way to "get ahead" nor the most effective. But if you want to be more "eggy," but you've spent most of your life being "spermy", you might wonder what you can do to facilitate your personal transformation so that, whether you're male or female, you can learn to be more egg, less sperm.
Personally, I've been operating the way I so often do – trying to learn all this the hard way ever since Dr. Christiane Northrup told me to be less sperm, more egg over two years ago. I had a vague notion of what she meant. But there was no owner's manual, no step-by-step guide describing how to manifest your dreams in a more feminine way.
Finding Your Way In A Wild New World
At least, it didn't exist until Martha Beck wrote it in her latest book Finding Your Way In A Wild New World. It will be impossible to summarize an entire book of science and spiritually-based practices and exercises in one blog post, so please, if you're a visionary longing to help heal the world, please, please, please buy a copy for yourself and buy three more to give to the visionaries in your life.
With that disclaimer, let me see if I can boil down what Martha teaches in this book into an appetizer you can digest.
The 4 Technologies of Magic
Martha breaks down the process of bringing into form that which you desire in order to be a force for healing the world into what she calls the "4 technologies of magic."
WORDLESSNESS: The 1st Technology Of Magic
The first requires moving from your thinking, word-forming, "we're all separate so every man for himself" left brain into your intuitive, feeling, "we're all connected" healer's right brain. In other words, you can't think or plan or write or sperm your way to making magic happen. Essentially, the techniques Martha teaches in her book are forms, for lack of better language, with which to call something language-less – energy medicine.
She compares the 4 technologies of magic to our use of computers and the internet. If we're all connected and we're nothing more than interdependent vibrations of energy as scientists have proven, then essentially, we live in The Matrix (you saw the movie The Matrix, right? And What The Bleep Do We Know!? And neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor's fabulous TED talk about what she learned from having a stroke? If not, go out and watch all three.)
If we can manipulate The Matrix to bring into form something that begins only as an idea, then dropping into Wordlessness is how we log onto the Energy Internet. Most of the techniques for moving from your limited left to your unlimited right brain are forms of meditation practice. For example, one of my favorites Martha calls "sense-drenching."
Close your eyes and picture yourself looking at something beautiful without using words to describe it to yourself. Then add in your favorite taste, your favorite smell, your favorite soft thing to feel, your favorite sound. Try holding all five sensations in your mind without using words. If you're able to do this, you'll be operating from your right, not your left brain, and you'll be automatically Wordless.
ONENESS: The 2nd Technology Of Magic
My favorite of the three technologies, Oneness practices are built upon the idea that we are not independent, separate beings but part of a collective consciousness that vibrates together, that what affects one of us affects all of us, and therefore, that we can communicate with and influence each other without using words.
If dropping into Wordlessness allows you to access the Energy Internet, tapping into a sense of Oneness allows you to send emails. With the practices Martha teaches in this section, you can learn to "become one" with a fork and bend it, listen to messages from trees (she calls the "The Aunties") or allow the veggies at the farmer's market to tell you which ones your body craves, call in the animals (Martha called in 1000's of whales and made international news), and send telepathic communication to other humans, leading them to take actions they don't even realize they're taking.
IMAGINATION: The 3rd Technology Of Magic
The 3rd and 4th technologies of magic require practicing and mastering the techniques Martha teaches for tapping into Wordlessness and Oneness. (This is not easy. I've been trying – with some success I'll blog about soon. But start practicing now. It's like going to the gym – the more you do it, the better the results.)
Once you've got Wordlessness and Oneness down pat, you can start Imagining what wants to happen in service to the world. For example, I've been Imagining for years what it would look like to heal our health care system. (You can read about my Vision To Heal Health Care here). But now that I'm clear what that could look like, it's time to employ Martha's techniques for Imagining – and bring in others who share my vision so we can all Imagine together.
To do this, I gather my team and we tap into what she calls the "Everywhen," and we feel for what wants to happen – not just what we want to happen, but what yearns to happen. (There's a subtle but important difference here that has less to do with me and my own ego and much more to do with planetary healing.)
When you Imagine your vision, The Matrix kicks into high gear trying to deliver on a silver platter anything you need to bring this vision into reality.
FORMING: The 4th Technology Of Magic
The last technology of magic is about forming – not forcing – whatever you want (in other words, how to manifest your dreams by being less sperm, more egg.)
The secret Martha reveals in this section is not what you'll expect to hear. In fact, it may sound downright maddening. But in my opinion, the 4th technology of magic is far easier than the 1st or 2nd. While it depends upon tapping into Wordlessness and Oneness, Forming requires following only three rules.
- Play until it's time to rest.
- Rest until it's time to play.
- Lather, rinse, repeat.
Then you get to act like a good little egg and just sit back and watch the sperm come to you bearing gifts and wearing little black hats and bow ties with roses between their teeth. (Yes, I did steal that vivid spermy image from Where Do Babies Come From?, the book my parents used to teach me about the birds and the bees. It's awesome. Read it.)
Does It Work?
I'm still in shock about how effective these techniques have proved to be in my own life. Money, passion, joyous life experiences, business opportunities, glorious new friends, and people committed to helping me bring my vision to life are literally falling at my feet. And the same blessings long to fall at yours.
So read Martha's book and try these techniques yourself. And stay tuned. Because the magic resulting from my daily practice of these techniques is still unfolding in my own life, and I'll certainly be sharing the details with you here. (Be sure you're on my newsletter list so you don't miss anything super juicy).
And because, in the words of my friend Mama Gena, "Unexpressed blessings turn to shit," I have to say thank you to Martha Beck for uplifting my life in countless ways. Bless you Martha. I love you to pieces!
Will You Try It?
Are you on board? Will you give the 4 technologies of magic a try? Are you ready to finally try being less sperm, more egg? Share your thoughts.
Lissa Rankin
Lissa Rankin, MD: Creator of the health and wellness communities LissaRankin.com and OwningPink.com, author of Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself (Hay House, 2013), TEDx speaker, and Health Care Evolutionary. Join her newsletter list for free guidance on healing yourself, and check her out on Twitter and Facebook.


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When "having beef" is a great thing.
Corned Beef:
3 pounds corned beef brisket with spice packet
2 carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 medium onions, chopped
1 small head green cabbage, cored, roughly chopped
2 cups apple juice
1 cup water
1 1/2 pounds baby red potatoes, sliced in half
1/2 stick butter, softened
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Step 1
For the corned beef, put the carrots and onions on the bottom of slow cooker, and put the corned beef on top. Arrange the chopped cabbage around the beef.
Step 2
Add the apple juice and 1 cup of water along with the contents of the spice packet. Cook on low 6 to 8 hours until the beef is tender. Remove the beef and vegetables to a platter and keep warm.
Step 3
For the potatoes, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the potatoes. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Drain and return them to the pot.
Step 4
Add the butter, garlic, parsley, and salt, and pepper, to taste. Gently combine so that all the potatoes are evenly coated. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with corn beef and vegetables from the slow cooker.


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Wind Farm Opponents are Hypochondriacs
In November, our associate editor Casey Lyons wrote about the suffering residents of Falmouth. In 2010, the Cape Cod town had installed a pair of wind turbines to help meet the state goal of powering 80,000 homes with renewable energy. Since then, neighbors have complained that the turbines were driving them crazy, causing vertigo, migraines, difficulty sleeping, and the scary phenomenon of "shadow flicker." Lyons conclusion: Since the town was pulling in $11 million annually — revenue it clearly didn't want to give up — the neighbors would probably be forced to move.
Turns out the turbines weren't causing any health effects. Yesterday, a state panel comprised of the departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health released a report showing that there was no evidence that the turbine was causing illness. The study conceded that it was possible that the noise could potentially disrupt some people's sleep — and warned of the dangers of ice being flung by the turbine's blades — but that was all. No vertigo, no migraines, and no shadow flicker (thank God!).
Rather, it seems, the neighbors are suffering from a classic illness: NIMBYism. For the unacquainted: Not In My Back Yard.


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Does anyone ever achieve them?
Am I setting myself up for certain failure?
Should I blog about it?
Will you all be bored witless and never read my blog again?
Will I be totally embarrased by it?
So what!
Here goes with some resolutions for 2008 - the ones involving losing weight, eating and drinking and spending less and being more organised are almost definitely not going to happen but I keep aiming for them and we can only wait and see, one day they may actually happen!
- Lose weight (ideally about 4 stone!)
- Drink a lot less wine! Just thinking about all the extra hours of creatively productive time I would have if I didn't drink wine in the evenings should be a good enough incentive (sadly that doesn't seem to be the case unless I am really really busy!) I think I will aim for only drinking on Friday and Saturday nights for the month of January. That may be achievable and will almost definitely help with the weight loss!
- Eat more sensibly - the problem is I tend to binge eat if a diet is around!
- Keep the house tidier
- Spend much less money
- Be organised - get up earlier, get ready earlier, be at school earlier etc!
- Spend more time doing things with the children - playing, reading, crafting, cooking etc
- Be more consistent with the allotment - I tend to be either 150% or 0% - I need more balance!
- Also be consistent with my creativity. I think the blog will help with this as it keeps me in constant contact with new ideas but I do find it difficult to be creative and allotment-ty at the same time - probably because I am a 150%/0% type of person!
- Keep my Etsy shop updated - so that I can afford to buy lovely new craft supplies - see resolution no. 5!!!!
- Not spend so much time in front of the computer reading about what everyone else is doing and get on with doing things myself!
- Finally, try to develop some designs of my own. This one is scary! I never feel like I am capable of designing but I think if I give myself some more encouragement something may come of it!
P.S. One extra resolution - for those of you waiting for your PIF gift from me - I promise I will get it in the post to you soon (well, fairly soon!!!!) I haven't forgotten - Christmas orders just got in the way!


text: F.A.T. took it to the next level, combining a couple of their projects for the Cinekid festival. This contraption lets kids write their names with their eyes for printing by a robot arm. The first part is a glasses-free version of the EyeWriter, originally developed as an assistive technology. The system uses some IR LEDs to generate a reflection on your eye that a PS3 camera can pick up and use to precisely track your gaze. Just look at each key on a virtual keyboard to spell out your message. From there, a robot arm used previously in the Robotagger project prints out the name on a big sheet of paper the kids can take home. This is cool, but more importantly it's a great way to inspire the next generation of hackers and engineers. Check out the video after the break.


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OCEAN CITY — After years of claims, counterclaims and pre-trial motions, the multi-million dollar trademark infringement civil trial between a popular Ocean City nightclub complex and a corporation and its subsidiaries began in earnest this week.
The suit involves O.C. Seacrets, the corporation that owns and operates the popular Seacrets nightclub and restaurant complex over the three-block section of the bayfront in Ocean City, and the Coryn Corporation and its subsidiaries, which has since opened nine resort destinations in Jamaica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic operating under the name "Secrets."
O.C. Seacrets is claiming the Coryn group's use of "Secrets" is infringing on its trademark and goodwill and creating confusion for consumers.
While the exact amount being sought by O.C. Seacrets is not entirely clear, it is likely several million dollars, and a source close to the situation said this week the final total could approach $100 million if O.C. Seacrets is successful in the case. O.C. Seacrets is seeking all of the profits Coryn and its subsidiaries derived from the use of "Secrets" and is asking the award be tripled. In addition, O.C. Seacrets is seeking all damages it sustained as a result of Coryn's trademark infringement and unfair competition and is asking that those damages be tripled as well.
In October 1997, O.C. Seacrets successfully registered the trademark "Seacrets" for "restaurant and bar services" at its location along the bay at 49th Street. Over the years, the restaurant and nightclub complex expanded to a three-block area including several bars, restaurants, a nightclub, a hotel, condominiums and its own radio station. According to court documents, the complex draws between 4,000 and 6,000 guests each weekend during the summer season.
In June 2000, Coryn filed an intent-to-use application for the trademark "Secrets" for "resort hotel services" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which officially registered the "Secrets" mark for Coryn in October 2003. In January 2004, O.C. Seacrets petitioned the patent office's Trademark Trial and Appeals Board (TTAB) to cancel Coryn's "Secrets" mark, arguing that its own mark "Seacrets" covered services closely related to if not identical to "resort hotel services" and there was a likelihood of confusion between the marks.
In August 2008, the TTAB ordered the cancellation of Coryn's registration because O.C. Seacrets had a priority of usage in its Seacrets mark and there was a likelihood of confusion between the marks. The TTAB also denied Coryn's petition for partial cancellation or restriction because it found the proposed restriction would not avoid confusion.
In October 2008, Coryn appealed the TTAB's decision to the U.S. District Court.
In December 2008, O.C. Seacrets counterclaimed for trademark infringement and unfair competition under the Lanham Act and Maryland common law. After several claims and counterclaims, the jury trial finally began on Monday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore with opening statements and early testimony and entered its fourth day on Thursday.
According to the opinion of a U.S. District Court judge on a pre-trial motion to determine who is the plaintiff and who is the defendant in terms of who proceeds first in presenting its case, the burden of proof is on O.C. Seacrets.
"O.C. Seacrets has sued Coryn for trademark infringement and unfair competition," court documents read. "To prevail on these claims, O.C. Seacrets must prove it has a valid protectable trademark and the Coryn is infringing on its mark by creating confusion, or a likelihood thereof, by causing mistake or deceiving as to the attributes of its mark."
For the O.C. Seacrets team, however, the similarities are irrefutable.
"The 'Secrets' mark is confusingly similar to the 'Seacrets' mark and name in all respects and use of the 'Secrets' mark in connection with Coryn, Coryn II, and AMResorts' goods and services is likely to cause confusion or mistake as to source of origin or services, thereby misleading and/or deceiving consumers," O.C. Seacrets' counterclaim reads. "Seacrets, Coryn, Coryn II and AMResorts use their marks in connection with the same types of related goods and services, and such goods and services are sold to the same class of purchasers."
O.C. Seacrets is claiming the consuming public, on seeing the "Secrets" name on the destination resorts around the Caribbean, will assume it is affiliated with the original "Seacrets" in Ocean City and vice versa.
O.C. Seacrets also claims consumers familiar with the vacation destinations in Jamaica and elsewhere might assume the Ocean City nightclub complex came later.
"The consuming public, on seeing the 'Secrets' mark in association with Coryn's goods and services, is likely to believe, erroneously, that such goods and services originate from or have some connection, affiliation or sponsorship with Seacrets, which they do not," the counterclaim reads. "Such confusion, or the potential for reverse confusion, is a source of significant harm and damages to Seacrets and its registered mark and name."


text:
Usually there are no problems with Linux and the keyboard.
Though there are two minor caveats: First the
setleds program might not work. Second the
key mapping might not fit your needs. Some
UNIX users and vi users
expect to find the <CONTROL> key to the left of the
<A> key. Many PC-type keyboards have the
<CAPS-LOCK> key there. You may use
xmodmap or loadkeys to
re-map the keyboard. Some laptops (e.g., Toshiba) allow you
to swap the <CAPS-LOCK> and <CONTROL> keys. Mark
Alexander offered this solution in the linux-laptop mailing
list: On RedHat, it's a one-line patch to
, or
whatever file is referenced in
*** us.map~ Tue Oct 31 14:00:07 1995 --- us.map Thu Aug 28 13:36:03 1997 *** 113,119 **** keycode 57 = space space control keycode 57 = nul alt keycode 57 = Meta_space ! keycode 58 = Caps_Lock keycode 59 = F1 F11 Console_13 control keycode 59 = F1 alt keycode 59 = Console_1 --- 113,119 ---- keycode 57 = space space control keycode 57 = nul alt keycode 57 = Meta_space ! keycode 58 = Control keycode 59 = F1 F11 Console_13 control keycode 59 = F1 alt keycode 59 = Console_1
A second (or external) keyboard can be attached using the PS/2 port (I suppose this is not possible via the serial port, since there is no keyboard controller for the serial port) or via USB port. Also there is one laptop with a detachable keyboard the Siemens Scenic Mobile 800. This machine uses an infrared connection to the keyboard, but I don't know whether this works with Linux.
You may not need any operating system support at all to use a USB keyboard if you have a PC architecture. There are several BIOS available where the BIOS can provide USB support from a keyboard plugged into the root hub on the motherboard. This may or may not work through other hubs and does not normally work with add-in boards, so you might want to add in support anyway. You definitely want to add keyboard support if you activate operating system support, as the Linux USB support will disable the BIOS support. You also need to use Linux USB keyboard support if you want to use any of the "multimedia" types keys that are provided with some USB keyboards.
In the kernel configuration stage, you need to turn on USB Human Interface Device (HID) support and Keyboard support. Do not turn on USB HIDBP Keyboard support. Perform the normal kernel rebuild and installation steps. If you are installing as modules, you need to load the hid.o, input.o and keybdev.o modules.
Check the kernel logs to ensure that your keyboard is being correctly sensed by the kernel.
At this point, you should be able to use your USB keyboard as a normal keyboard. Be aware that LILO is not USB aware, and that unless your BIOS supports a legacy USB keyboard, you may not be able to select a non-default boot image using the USB keyboard. I have personally used a USB keyboard (and USB mouse) and experienced no problems.
Don't plug the external keyboard in while the laptop is booted, or plug the mouse in the keyboard port and the keyboard in the mouse port. On a Toshiba, this caused one user to have to completely shutdown the laptop, remove the keyboard/mouse, and do a cold reboot.
For PS/2 ports there is a so called Y-Cable available, which makes it possible to use external mouse and external keyboard at the same time if your laptop supports this feature.
Parport to AUX port adapter In some cases one kbd port and one aux port is not enough and you may want to add another keyboard or mouse. You can use this adapter, together with the parkbd module for that.
On some laptops a splitter works to allow both mouse and keyboard to be plugged in; on others it doesn't work at all. If you want to use both, you better check that it works.


text:
Ishmeal Alfred MorganHeritage (SIERRA LEONE)
Excellent service and amazing team. Shivika is a trusted and amazing woman who has been supportive to our small project that is sending children to India for major surgeries we applied medical visa for India. Thanks to your team for helping us to save the lives of poor sick children by facilitating our visa processing very fast
Mohamed Bile (USA)
your India visa services were excellent, I can say it was the best service I have ever experienced because the time is always important, and you serve us much earlier than we expected, thank you very much for your amazing services.
Philline bliss paulin (UAE)
Very amazing and quick assistance for India eVisa from Shivika. Thanks a lot again Shivika for all you help.
Ron Levy (Canada)
They're very patient and understanding and very helpful
Itzik Miller (Iraland)
To be honest, this is the first time that I received a quick, friendly, and kind response to my visa request. I hope we get service providers like the one I received. Thank you very much and keep it up.
I have tried several times and for 5 days to pay for my e visa application online � it will not process the payment � I have tried debit and credit cards and had to complete 4 new pplications after 3 tries I have tried with different cards � by phone � cleared browser etc Tried to call +91-22-27523796 but always busy or someone answers and hangs up SBI technical support center at 1800221401 does not work from uk Have done 5 applications and been blocked I found etaindia.org website. i was write a email to helpdesk of etaindia.org they replied within 5 mins. I applied e tourist visa application on that website and get my eVisa within 48 hours. thank you very much smith for your... help God bless you..!
David Burton (UK)
I had an awful experience with official e-Tourist Visa site refusing to take payment online. The helpdesk referred me to SblPay 'technical support' (2 tel numbers). After 100 unsuccessful (no answer) calls I gave up and used this agency, paying by Paypal. Visa received after 24h. I have the visa. Would recommend this site as legitimate - I cannot fault the service. Holiday now back on !!
Edward Fleming (UK)
I had completed my eTV application but I cannot get through the payment, it was keep declining and I didn't know why. I was trying to pay the Indian visa fee online for India, but when I did try and pay via online visa fee payment I tick yes and pay now..and it says payment failed and payment not received and try again through e-tourist visa (eTV), which I have tried on a number of occasions and get the same result. It just says "payment not made" and does not go to the page where you put you card details. I was still unable to pay for my visa via e-tourist. I was search in google and get ETAindia.org website they help me getting visa. I applied visa application on etaindia.org and get granted letter in 24 hours. You guys are giving superb service.
Charles David Lockyer (AUSTRALIA)
Thank you, e-Tourist visa granted! Appreciate the help and fast service.
Charity Grace (USA)
This is a Express e-Tourist Visa service specially for qualified individuals who wants a visa for the purpose of visiting India. Thank you for this easy visa processing.
DICKSTEIN (United Kingdom)
This is the first time in my entire life I was issued a Indian e-Tourist visa in the shortest possible time without going to Embassy. Definitely a great way of inviting foreign tourists to the country of the diverse cultural heritage.
Veettil (CANADA)
I did apply eTV india these for myself and my wife and it was very easy and fast. I am very impressed. Nice job on both the website design and the speed of your servers.
Robert Strang (AUSTRALIA)
Great Indian Visa application! Used it for the 2nd time and I have never seen such a user friendly tourist visa application.
Rebecca Sutton (Philippines)
The E-Visa India process was remarkably simple and intuitive. I have never had such a pleasant experience applying for a evisa india. Thank you very much for creating this system.
Valentina Paz (CHILE)
Such an ease to apply for the eTV India. No confusion or complication. I have never ever experienced such simple and speed in making and receiving a Tourist Visa.
WRIGHT (Dubai)
i shocked we got visa within 24 hours and the urgent e-tourist visa india processing time is 24 hours
Divya Kapoor (France)
I Applied e-tourist visa for India, I need a urgent visa for India and they given me visa within 24 hours. They process my e tourist visa application in 24 hours and the cost of e-tourist visa is reasonable. I m very happy with this facility. Thank you ETAindia.org.
Gutierrez (Los Mochis, USA)
Applied for India e-tourist visa for my daughter, that time I have been some other places also but they were not confident about visa approval and process time 24 hours, so I was worried and searching other website for tourist visa and found ETAindia.org facility. They told me that the processing time of e tourist visa india applications will be a minimum of 24 hours.I sent all information of documents. I have got visa in less than 24 hours. Really Nice work. Thanks a lot ETAindia.org.
MARIA (Philippines)
I am really impressed. I did not think I will get my tourist visa for india done before the departure of the flight. You have exceeded all expectations. Rest assured, I will pass your number to all my friends and colleagues who may at times require to avail of your assistance. You are in all true spirit and asset to your company. Keep up the good work.
I would like to congratulate and thank you on the speed and efficiency at which you have processed the e tourist visa application .. Your knowledge of the visa application processes for convinced me that you are the experts. 10/10 for ETA India visas.
Melissa (Australia)
Thank you very much for your help and guidance. I got Tourist visa for India yesterday. You guys are giving superb service. You made the most tedious india visa application process simple and hassle free :) Keep up the good work. Thanks a lot once again.
Jordan (MACEDONIA)
It was a great experience getting my visa approved by ETAIndia.org. I was told it'll take around 4 days; but I had my tourist visa within a day. Express service.
DANG HOANG LAN (Vietnam)
I recently applied for a visa for India, Smith was very helpful in the whole process and Rita was a great help too ,thanks a lot and keep up good work guys.
Innes Coutts (New Zealand)
Thanks a lot for your great service that you provided during the time when I was in New Zealand and I need someone who can help me in getting urgent e-tourist visa for my wife and Son. So Many thanks to eTV services and Smith for all your support and help�. Wishing I will contact you again in Future�
Om Saptarshi (AUS)
Although I had trouble due to a web page crash when making my payment the first time the speed of response from your staff in responding to my email enquiries was brilliant. They should be congratulated on their professionalism. the e tourist visa india processing time is 24 hours.
Hayward (USA)
It is one of the most friendliest and easy web site to apply for eVisa or the fee of e-tourist visa is fine. My congratulation the the etaindia.org to develop such an easy and user friendly website process visa application in 24 hours.. Job extremely well done.
I received the e-tourist visa india. Thank you so much for being so accomodating to my urgent tourist visa request and had it done so fast within 24 hours. I am impressed. I will definitely recommend your service to all my friends.
Adam (USA)
Hello, we have just been back from India. Found the etourist visa process excellent and was granted 30 days from the date of arrival in India. Thank you for all the help. I will recommend you to all my friends. Best regards
Fuller (Australia)
Hello Mr. Smith, I write this message to say thank you so much for your assistance in getting my e tourist visa to India. We had a great trip in your beautiful country. Yours faithfully
I would like to say thank you to India tourist Visa for your very fast and professional service to Rita and your fast service allowed me holidays in India. Thank you again. I will be using your company for our next trip.
Renner (Australia)
I have received urgent tourist visa for india. Thank you very much. I was amazed and pleased at the reasonable prices and fast visa service. Be assured I will be using your excellent service again in the future.
Morris (USA)
I am a senior citizen who never uses the computer for anything other than e-mail so you can imagine how intimidating the thought of completing an online india visa application was for me and the wife. Thanks to the etaindia.org agent who worked with us, the application was filled out quickly and accurately. We received indian e-tourist visa in 24 hours and are looking forward to our dream trip to India. We were amazed at how reasonable your costs of e Tourist visa were.
Thanks you so much for all your work in getting our India e visa set up. It is a great relief to know all we have to do is present the approval letter which I received today and our visa granted. Your team was very helpful at working through the process with peopled like us who do visa online. We will tell all our friends how user friendly your site it.
Abudlrahman (USA)
I was really worried about filling this in as I have never done it before but it was very easy and the step by step instructions are great. Thanks for making it easy!
Fleming (USA)
Thanks for your service, I got the visa when I need the most, your urgent e tourist visa for india service is commendable. Cheers!
Quick India tourist visa service provided by your company. Appreciate Smith to provide service on time.
Thank you very much for the excellent tourist visa service and lightning fast india visa approval.
Thank you for your efforts in providing me with a tourist visa. Dealing with you has been a pleasure. You have asked few documents and provided the urgent tourist visa service very fast and professionally. It has been an easy transaction. Many thanks to you and your staff.
AL TAMARY (Jordan)
Thank you so much for the very fast visa processing for the indian visit visa. I will definitely tell all my friends about your great service and I look forward to getting your service again. Again, thank you for professional service.
Janssens (Australia)
Fantastic service! It was my first experience with e-tourist visa (etv) and I�m really happy. The process was so fast, I sent my documents and in one day I got my visa online. Thank you ETA India.
MARIA (Germany)
Great service! I submitted my application on Tuesday morning and received my eTourist visa on Wednesday morning. In 24h I got my visa, I�m really grateful. Next time, I�ll apply again with indian visa service, amazing job guys.
HESHAM (Canada)
The service was very fast, after I submitted my Urgent eTourist Visa online application, they immediately send me an e-mail to confirm the order and I got my eTV india visa just in one day. Thank you ETA India.
Doug (USA)
Thank you for the wonderful service. I�m really grateful for the quick visa service for my family. We got our e-tourist visa india in 24 hours. Excellent job and attentive staff!
Laura J (USA)
eTourist Visa Service saved my life, I received my "emergency visa" on time and I continued my trip attending a very important meeting.
Sherri (USA)
Thank you so much urgent indian visa service. In just 24 hours I received my visa online. The service was very friendly and attentive staff. I highly recommend eTV Visa service is fast and without hassle.
Brooklynn (Estonia)
In just over 24 hours I recieved my indian visa and am very pleased with the services that this website provided to me. Very friendly and attentive staff. I highly reccomend using etaindia.org for your travel needs!
M.Rasheed (Estonia)
The e visa service provided by etaindia.org is simple and and it is my first experience to get visa online. I appreciate and other countries also learn from this simple visa process.
Imdad Hussain (U.S.A)
Thank you very much for the excellent service and lightning fast visa approval.
Brent Van Peer (U.S.A)
Great experience; responsive and fast content delivery. Well done!.
Gene Frank (Australia)
Thank you for this opportunity to comment. We found the application process for our Visa''s to be very easy as its format is very logical and seamless through to the end when one prints out the copy of the Visas and receipt. Now looking forward to our tour of India. Thank you
Mrs Jorina Venter (USA)
Dear sir: I do not have a problem at all! When I said: ' This was a breeze!!!! I cannot believe that a e visa application can be so hassle-free and so quick' I hope I did not confuse you by using the word 'breeze'. It is an American idiom meaning 'it was so easy'. We have traveled to many countries requiring a visa and I can say with confidence that yours was the most efficient process. It took only minutes and I could do it from the comfort of our home. And the fact that you responded so quickly to my comment, even though meant to be a compliment, shows your efficiency and responsiveness. We will be visiting India for more than two weeks in August and am looking forward to it. Thank you again.
Guenther Horst (Germany)
This is an good and easy way to apply for your visa for Indian Visa within 1 Day you are ready and have your visa.
Gudrun Magdalena (Germany)
This is by far the most efficient and convenient ETA India visa service I have ever experienced (and I travel quite a lot). Thank you!
Susukida (Japan)
I wish every Visa was as easy to get as this. Please spread this to every country! It makes it very difficult for people who like to travel to send their passports away hoping everything will be OK and they will get their passports back. Thank you!
Gagandeep Singh (USA)
A wonderful and efficient service. Why can''t other ETA India visa applications be as painless as this. congratulations
Bethany (USA)
The India etourist visa application was quite clear and very simple to fill in. The prompt acknowledgement to my e-mail address reflects an efficient process. The payment process with the receipt being provided right away is also an excellent control to indicate that the payment went through. The response from E-Visa India to indicate that the visa is ready for download also reflects efficiency and speed.
Patricia (USA)
I love the new e tourist visa system. In particular, I appreciate that I can enter all of my family''s passport details (one after another) before I proceed to the payment/finalization stage. It''s nice to be able to pay for all the visas at the same time.
Rachel (USA)
Very fast and convenient. I should have used this on-line feature from the 1st time i applied for etourist Visa to India. Thank you for providing this. Hoping that other countries would have this as well.
linleeyan (Luxembourg)
This e Tourist India visa application was definitely a 5 star experience. We are now looking forward to experiencing a 5 star experience in India! :)
Karen Murphy (Philippines)
Very simple process; easy to understand. English is very accurate; no guessing about what is intended. Colored button navigation is good; font is easy to read. Drop-downs are excellent in terms of entering dates. I travel frequently and this is a very good e-visa India system.
Terry Redden (Australia)
The website is very professional and elegant. The e-visa India process was very smooth and efficient. I will recommend this to all my friends and coworkers who plan on visiting India!
Paolo Mauro (Fiji)
Very quick, simple and clean interface, I don''t know how it could possibly be better than this and I build sites like this for a living. Well done, a pleasure to use.
Luciano F Mauro (Kenya)
Website is clear and guides the user through the process. e-mails are generated and received quickly
Liana Mauro (USA)
First in class service that must become standard globally. Thanks for setting the pace!
Kim Walter (Luxembourg)
The best service I ever experienced!!!! Thank you so much for setting up such a wonderful e-visa India service for everyone who likes to visit the beautiful India!!!
Eva Schiffer (Germany)
Hello, I am just writing to praise how easy and inviting this eTA India visa service is. This website and the ease of process make it look like you really want people to visit your country. Most visa processes of other countries look like they are trying to keep you out and make it difficult. Thanks for making me feel welcome. Kind regards Eva Schiffer
Barb Walter (Cambodia)
A wonderful and efficient online Visa service. Why can''t other visa applications be as painless as this. congratulations
Samaratunga (Sri Lanka)
I must confess that it is the smoothest and fastest way for a foreigner to get an e visa online. A great way to welcome tourists. I am sure my family would enjoy their visit to India. I would like to thank Government of India for making the visa application process so simple and easy.
Te?ekk�r ederim (USA)
I wish all visa applications were as clear, quick, easy and simple as yours. Excellent job, India!
Rihana Stella (USA)
The experience was excellent. I just got my e-visa within 24 hours. Its unbelievable!! Keep up the good work. Hope to have similar fantastic experience in India!
Claire Evelyn (Australia)
Excellent - quick, easy, very well explained. I wish all websites were like this. And I am very excited about my fist visit to India!
Jacky Jee (USA)
This is one of the best e-visa websites I have visited. Very clear and concise instructions. Clean and neat design. I had no problems with navigating or understanding the directions and completing the required information. Good job!
Dennis (Anguilla)
I like the way in which calender dates are entered! filling out is very simple with good information on each field. No suggestions from my side - every thing works fine!
Brian (Antigua & Barbuda)
This is quite simply highly professional and ahead of every other country I''ve visited in my 43 years on this earth. Well done ETA India - my first destination for a summer break!
Mereiro (Australia)
Extremely easy to use and very user friendly. Straight forward in its application. I felt very comfortable and secure using this program.
Katrina Hanshaw (Bahamas)
I cannot believe how easy and efficient the visa application is. Well done, excellent service!
Nichole (Barbados)
Fantastic service ! As a professional who travels a lot to academic conferences and meetings, I appreciate your online e-Visa. It is brilliantly designed, organized, and delivered. Thank you!
Ken Debajee (Belize)
The website is really amazing and easy to use. The information is easy to find and simple to understand. I congratulate the etaindia.org for doing a commendable the e-Visa website.
Kelly Peters (Cambodia)
I must confess that it is the smoothest and fastest way for a foreigner to get an e visa on line. A great way to welcome tourists. I am sure my family would enjoy their visit to India. I would like to thank etaindia.org for making the visa application website so simple and easy.
Linda (Canada)
Wonderful way to get a Visa to India without going to the embassy or sending our passports through the mail. Thank you!
Asli Can (Germany)
As a travel professional its a wonderful concept, it makes travel without boundaries a reality, i wish we had more such visa portals with best wishes to all - have great year with lots of tourist visit India.
Dan K (USA)
Hello! Well done. I''ve done many applications for Visas over time and the new India Visa is one of the easiest and most straightforward. Hopefully this saves time and money at the airport. Good job. Thank you and I look forward to visiting India again. Regards, Dan K
Pramal Desoz (USA)
Most efficient. Very fast. Most convenient. One of the best experiences for getting a tourist visa. Congratulations. As opposed to other countries where it is difficult, lengthy, costly and inconvenient. Congratulations for implementing such a great system. We look forward to our India visit.
etaindia.org Very easy to navigate, just the right level of security, overall an excellent site.
The most straight forward, easy to use Indian online visa application I have experienced. Thank you.
This is website is super awesome. It is very useful, helpful and user friendly even for beginner. It has all the instruction in every step. Wonderful, thumbs up for you! Thank you very much ETA India for providing this Service.
Wow, you have the best Indian e-visa website in the world! I''ve never before seen such a user-friendly service from any government agency. Even the little calendar pop-up was simple and logical. Congratulations, this sets a new worldwide standard for quick and easy web-based services.
unbelievable. At first, I was expecting that so many attachments, information will be required, but it''s nothing like that at all. Great work ETA India E-visa service, no doubt why people loves to visit India :-)
The e-visa application service provided by the etaindia.org is smooth, very effective, user-friendly and faster than light! My visa appeared afterpayment verification,which was absolutely awesome! As awesome as the Republic of India :-D
Apply e-Tourist Visa
Apply e-Business Visa
Pay Visa Fees
Complete Filled Form
Visa is technically the official authorization granting traveler access to the areas of a foreign country. Previously the traveller needed to get the visa approval through Indian embassies situated in their vicinity. Now the Indian government has started an e-Visa facility which enables the traveler belonging to a list of around 162 countries to apply for visa online. The e-Visa application process is fully online. Soft copies of relevant documents need to be uploaded online and the visa approval documents are also mailed directly to the applicants. The traveler just have to carry a hard copy of the visa approval documents for presenting it to the Immigration officers in India. Here we try to breakdown the whole visa application process into easy to follow steps to help the online applicants make an informed decision.
Passport holders of 162 countries including the United States, are eligible to apply for the Indian visa (e-Visa) online. Applicants of the eligible countries are requested to apply online minimum 4 days in advance of the date of arrival with a window of 180 days. e-Visa is valid for 60 days from the date of arrival. The visa must be availed within its period of validity. The e-Visa India for the purpose of Tourism and Business will be valid for two entries and for Medical purpose it will be valid for Three entries from the date of the first arrival date in India. e-Visa is allowed for a maximum of two visits in a calendar year.
he e-Visa services have been categorized into three types and the applicant has to choose any one of them depending on their purpose of visit to India. Below we have listed the types of e-Visas, the purposes they serve and the essential documents required in order to apply for them. The applicants are allowed to club together these categories. (a) e-Tourist visa for India:- The International tourists whose purpose of visit is sight-seeing, meeting acquaintances or is recreational in nature can opt for e-Tourist visa. The applicants need to upload the soft copy of the front page of their passports in order to apply for e-Tourist visa for India. (b) e-Medical visa for India:- This type of visa is issued to those tourists whose sole purpose of visit in India is to get medical treatment. A maximum of two attendants per patient who are blood relatives are also allowed entry. They have to apply separately as only one person is allowed per visa approval. Tourists applying for e-Tourist visa have to upload the soft copy of the front pages of their passport and a soft copy of the approval of the Indian medical institution where the treatment is going to be held. (c) e-Business visa for India:- Tourists who want to visit India for business purposes need to apply for e-Business visa. The required documents in the case of e-Business visa is the soft copy of the front page of their passports as well as the soft copy of their business cards. Businessmen coming here to deliver lectures or to attend conferences need to upload the invitation received from the concerned Indian organization/institute Note: The Invitations/recommendations and other paperwork needs to be submitted in English language only. Noncompliance may lead to rejection of the application.


text:
Ken Levine is running. No really! I'm assuming on a treadmill. Aha, I think, something we have in common. I'm a runner, too, though as I'm speaking to him by phone, listening to him catch his breath, I feel like I imagine the characters in Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling" must by the end of that elegiac O. Henry-winning story, my chest compressed as if by galactic forces. I'm sick. Ken, apparently, is healthy as a horse.
Which is good, considering he's about to release one of the most anticipated video games since, well, the original BioShock. No pressure! Levine is the co-founder and creative director of Irrational Games, where he's been the guiding hand behind video game milestones like System Shock 2 and the Freedom Force real-time strategy games. Before Irrational, he worked for one of my all-time favorite design houses, Looking Glass Studios, helping craft the watershed stealth PC game Thief: The Dark Project.
Nowadays he's under intense scrutiny from BioShock wonks, following up one of the highest-rated games of all time (he wasn't directly involved in the official sequel, BioShock 2) with BioShock Infinite: a thematically linked first-person shooter that trades BioShock's deep-down-below for the way-up-high, and Rapture's mid-1950s art deco objectivism-forged claustrophobia for a floating American sky-city dubbed Columbia circa 1912 — a city riddled with fascism, racism and religious zealotry. The new game lands next Tuesday.
I tap Google Voice's record button and we're off. (This is part one of a two-part interview — part two is here.)
How are you doing? It's been what, seven years since I saw you, before the first BioShock came out?
Yeah, it's been a busy few years. We're ready to give this game to people and see their reactions because that's when it gets really interesting, you know, getting out in the world. You live with it, you build it, you fall in love with it, then at some point it's time to cut the cord and let it go.
When you look back at the original game and you think about how overwhelmingly positive the reaction was to it, what do you see about it with 2013 eyes, where you might say "That was a compromise," or "We could have done that better"?
You always have to make decisions and compromises. Your constraints are defined by the team and the time and the platform, and then of course your ability and imagination. So I think that given infinite time you could always do more. I don't think there's anything in particular that when we released the game, we were like, "Okay, I really wish we had this." There were small things, like we had dual-wielding with plasmids and vigors, but we put it in so late that we didn't really have time to test it, so we had to take it out. That was a bit of a compromise, but then they had it in BioShock 2, which was great.
But I think it was the game we intended it to be. Certainly we didn't compromise on the message we wanted to get across or the themes we dealt with. Looking back, I don't see any big things that I would have changed. After it came out, with some reflection — you know I've talked about this before so it's not like it's new — but I think there's probably some retooling I would have done with the last third of the game. That's definitely the benefit of hindsight. At the time I wouldn't have known that.
The reason I ask is that one of the things I found fascinating back in 2006 was when you showed me all those pictures of real people who'd chosen to wear masks to conceal facial war wounds — the inspiration for the design of BioShock's splicers. At the time, you were planning to use the way characters in the game world reacted to the player to reflect their choices, you know, taking this drug that gave them supernatural abilities but that also, over time, caused horrible disfiguration. And yet that never made it into the game.
There's a concept that…you work out things and you have a million ideas as you go along, and sometimes the ideas make the cut and sometimes they don't. And we always say that, "Well, people don't know what's not in the game," right? So that feature for instance, like, not only do people not know that we were even thinking about it, I completely forgot about it since then, because looking back at it, I don't think it would have added anything that would have had a huge impact on the story we were trying to tell, which was really less about addiction or anything like that and more about the will to power and people trying to become the best possible version of themselves. I think we represented that pretty well, both in the splicers and the world, and [warning, original BioShock spoiler imminent!] the sense that Jack essentially found out he had no will, that he was a complete cipher. So looking back, I haven't thought about that particular topic for years. I don't think it would have made a huge difference in the game.
Sure, and having played and replayed it, even knowing about that idea, it's hard to see what it would have added, as you say, without shifting other ideas around. I'm just surprised how much the game retains its power going back through it now. There's so much going on thematically and philosophically.
I think we were probably unprepared that people would dig into that stuff as much as they did. We thought it was our little nerdy junior professor moment, playing around with those themes. If you were to ask me what was I happiest about with the game, it's how deeply people engage all the themes. We had to make sure the game worked, even if people didn't engage that deeply, you know, so there was lots to see and cool monsters to fight, but certainly I'd look back on the game very differently if people were like, "Yeah, that was cool. What's that about free will? What're you talking about?" So that's a bonus when you make a game, because you want to make a fun game, but if it can become something that people attach themselves to in ways that have nothing to do with the mechanics of the game, that's an additional bonus, and for me as a writer on that game, it's very gratifying.
What do you think about BioShock becoming the unofficial spokes-game for this whole "games as art" movement that really sprang up, for better or worse, in its wake?
It's not really a topic that ever engaged me particularly. And I think it's disappointing to people when I tell them that, because I think they want to…sometimes people look at me as if I have something really profound to say about what games are. But you know, look, I have a liberal arts college education. I spent a lot of time in classes and the argument in classes was "What is art?" and this back and forth about what is the meaning of art. Nobody's ever really established what the meaning of art is. I have my definition, everybody has their own definition. Whatever liberal arts class I was in back in 1985 having that debate, I'm sure every single person in that class had a different definition.
So then it's very hard to say on top of that, "Okay, now that we don't have a definition, does this fit into that unknown definition?" For me, what I care about, is does it…caring about things that don't exist is both the definition of art and insanity. Why care about something that doesn't exist? And yet people engage emotionally. There is no Indiana Jones. There is no Charles Foster Kane. And yet people engage with these things, and they care about them, even though they actually have no impact. It's not like a loaf of bread where hey, I'm starving, and I eat a loaf of bread and those bread bits turn into calories and carbohydrates and some proteins, and it makes your body function, or say having shelter for your family when you know a storm is coming. It has no meaning…and yet it does.
So I think that's the question. Does something have meaning that shouldn't have meaning? That, to me, is what art is.
I spoke with Shigeru Miyamoto recently and asked him a similar question — he said it's all still, for him, basically "Is this fun or not?"
Yeah, is it fun? Or does it make you care? That's the thing, because there's no output from a game. It comes down to what's in your head. It's not like you make a Microsoft Word document and words come out and those words get turned into a bill that gets turned into a law that means you can't cross the street. You know, games have no output…except what you make of them, of course. I think that's cool, and I like being in that field, because I think if I was just making crackers all day, that wouldn't be as satisfying for me, though it's certainly more nutritious, and you could actually give those crackers to your kid and feed him or her. Crackers are probably more valuable, I guess, but I'd rather make the stuff that has no value.
I can see the headline now. "Ken Levine likes to make stuff that has no value."
Or "Ken Levine Doesn't Like Nutritious Crackers."
There you go.
I just started playing the game, and I'm struck, on the one hand, by how wildly different the world looks, but also by how very BioShock it still feels.
When we announced BioShock Infinite I think there were three camps. There was the camp that was like, "Okay, Irrational's doing a new game, we trust them," which was probably the minority view. And there was another camp, probably larger, that said "This is calling it BioShock because the marketing guys said you have to, they're just pulling our legs because they want to make a different game and calling it BioShock will sell more copies." And the third camp was like, "Oh my god, they're basically just re-skinning Rapture and they're going to make exactly the same thing!"
So you get these people reacting in completely opposite ways, and for some reason our games do that to people. They bring out a lot of anxiety before they come out, and I think it's because people are very personally attached. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people with those chain tattoos on their wrists. That's a serious commitment. I think people make a serious connection to the game and then they're nervous that it's going to somehow become, you know, corporatized and neutered.
But BioShock Infinite was always to me a BioShock game. We just decided that BioShock didn't mean Rapture exclusively, that it means the look…the sort of hyper-stylized look of the world, the saturation of color, the feeling, the sense of humor, the combat mechanics and the kinds of themes we take on. We deal with the time period and we take the politics, the art, the music, the culture, the science, the advertising, the technology and then we give it a twist — a little bit of science fiction, whether its plasmids or buildings that float and tears that open in space — and we sort of put that all on a pod. I think that makes BioShock Infinite very much a BioShock game. I think as people play it, they're going to learn more and more how it's a BioShock game.
Some of my favorite moments in a game occur in BioShock, but before that, too, really going back to both System Shock and System Shock 2, where you're self-modifying and exploring, and sort of navigating survival horror informed by science fiction encapsulated in these dark, socio-political themes. There's a sense of what makes a "Shock" games going all the way back, isn't there?
That's a great question. I've thought a lot about that, and I think there's a bunch of stuff that defines the "Shock" experience. I've really dug deep on this lately, because you finish a game, and you're like, "What is the mission of the company?" you know, "What's been the mission since we started?" And I don't think we even knew what it was in the beginning. We started with this game that combined roleplaying and shooting and a cool sense of environment and interaction with characters like SHODAN. As rough as it was, for the time, you were having a relatively sophisticated relationship with a character in a game that wasn't just based in cutscenes. She chastised you, she punished you, she got mad at you, she threatened you… [System Shock 2 spoilers ahead!] I don't know if you remember the part where you're about to go into this room where Delacroix's body was, and SHODAN didn't want you to go in because she knew you'd find out that she betrayed her former avatar, and she said "If you go in there I'm going to punish you," and she did if you went in there, and she rewarded you if you didn't and followed her directions. That was a very rudimentary form of relationship.
With BioShock, things like the Big Daddy and Little Sister, I think it's fair to say — and I'm not trying to self-aggrandize here — that they've become somewhat iconic characters in gaming. I think the reason that is, is not because of their combat capacity or their weapons, though I think it's cool to have a drill shoved in your face and everything. But imagine the game without the Big Daddy or Little Sister. Imagine the game with just the Big Daddy walking around attacking you. I think it was their relationship and interaction, that you felt some empathy with them, that you connected to their relationship. That's why I love…I see all these pictures of fathers and daughter cosplaying the Big Daddy and Little Sister together. I think that's a great thing to see, because it shows that people are connecting on that level.
With BioShock Infinite, I think the inheritor of that sort of tradition of bringing the player into a connection with characters and therefore making them part of the narrative rather than observers is…the final state of where we are now is your relationship with Elizabeth. I don't know how far you've gotten in the game, but all the work we've done to build this character, to make her interactive, not just in cutscenes, but to make her live in the space all the time, to make her your partner, to make the story centered around your relationship with her, is to me the next step of "How do you bring the player into a narrative?" Generally, you do that through characters and how you make players not an observer, because that's what most games do, right? They have some gameplay, then you have some cutscene and they give you some narrative, and then you go back to the gameplay, then back to the narrative and so forth. We've always tried to combine the two. It's just been hard, because making characters is the tough part. With each game we try to move the needle a little bit forward.


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Bosnian Bridge among five new sites inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List this evening
Christchurch, New Zealand, 28 June - The World Heritage Committee on Thursday evening inscribed another five sites on UNESCO's World Heritage List: Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge of Višegrad (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Rideau Canal (Canada), Bordeaux, Port of the Moon (France), and the Old Town of Corfu (Greece), and Lavaux, vineyard terraces (Switzerland).
The Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge of Višegrad across the Drina River in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina was built at the end of the 16th century by the court architect Sinan on the order of the Grand Vizier Mehmed Paša Sokolović, It is characteristic of the apogee of Ottoman monumental architecture and civil engineering. It numbers 11 masonry arches, with spans of 11 to 15 metres, and an access ramp at right angles with four arches on the left bank of the river. The 179.50m long bridge is a representative masterpiece of Mimar Koca Sinan, one of the greatest architects and engineers of the classical Ottoman period and a contemporary of the Italian Renaissance, with which his work can be compared. The unique elegance of proportion and monumental nobility of the property as a whole bear witness to the greatness of this style of architecture.
The Rideau Canal, a monumental early 19th-century canal covering 202 kilometres of the Rideau and Cataraqui rivers from Ottawa south to Kingston Harbour on Lake Ontario was built primarily for strategic military purposes at a time when Great Britain and the United States of America vied for control of the region. The property, one of the first canals to be designed specifically for steam-powered vessels, also features an ensemble of fortifications. At the start of the project, in 1826, the British chose the so-called "slackwater" technology to avoid the need for extensive excavation. Instead, a series of dams were built to back up river water to a navigable depth and a chain of 50 massive locks were created. It is the best preserved example of a slackwater canal in North America demonstrating the use of this European technology in North America on a large scale. It is the only canal dating from the great North American canal-building era of the early 19th century to remain operational along its original line with most of its original structures intact. The canal was protected by the construction of six 'blockhouses' and a fort. Defensible lockmaster's houses were later added at several lock stations and, between 1846 and 1848 four Martello towers were constructed to strengthen the fortifications at Kingston harbour. The Rideau Canal is of historical importance as it bears witness to the fight for control of the north of the American Continent.
The historic centre of Bordeaux, Port of the Moon, the port city in south-west France, is inscribed as an inhabited historic city, an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble, created in the age of Enlightenment, whose values continued up to the first half of the 20th century, with more protected buildings than any other French city, except Paris. It is also recongized for its historic role as a place of exchange of cultural values over more than 2,000 years, particularly since the 12th century due to commercial links with Britain and the Low Lands. Urban plans and architectural of the early 18th century onwards place the city as an outstanding example of innovative classical and neo-classical trends and give it an exceptional urban and architectural unity and coherence. Its urban form represents the success of philosophers who wanted to make towns into melting pots of humanism, universality and culture.
The Old Town of Corfu, on the Island of Corfu off the western coasts of Albania and Greece, is located in a strategic position at the entrance of the Adriatic Sea, and has its roots in the 8th century BC. The three forts of the town, designed by renowned Venetian engineers, were used for four centuries to defend the maritime trading interests of the Republic of Venice against the Ottoman Empire. In the course of time, the forts were repaired and partly rebuilt several times, more recently under the British rule in the 19th century. The mainly neo-classical housing stock of the Old Town is partly from the Venetian period, partly of later construction, notably the 19th century. As a fortified Mediterranean port, Corfu's urban and port ensemble is notable for its high level of integrity and authenticity.
The Lavaux, vineyard terraces, stretching for about 30km along the south-facing northern shores of Lake Geneva from the Chateau de Chillon, to the eastern outskirts of Lausanne in the Vaud Region, cover the lower slopes of the mountain side between the villages and the lake. Although there is some evidence that vines were grown in the areas in Roman times, the present vine terraces can be traced back to the 11th century, when Benedictine and Cistercian Monasteries controlled the area. The villages, small towns and intensively planted vines reflect the changing system of production and patronage over ten centuries. Extensive remains of houses, mills, fortified towers, and much of the landscape reflect the way wine production evolved over that time. The cultural landscape of the Lavaux vineyard demonstrates in a highly visible way its evolution and development over close to a thousand years, through the preserved landscape and buildings, and also the continuation and adaptation of longstanding cultural traditions, specific to its locality. It is an outstanding example of a centuries-long interaction between people and their environment developed to optimize local resources so as to produce a highly valued wine that has always been important to the local economy. Local communities have been strongly supportive of protection measures to resist the fast-growing urban settlements that could endanger the area.